


Devils Don’t Fly

by ratherstarryeyed



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (yes he is genderfluid here Because I Said So), Costume Parties & Masquerades, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Being an Idiot, Mutual Pining, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, also. you can pry genderfluid deceit from my cold dead hands, first of all: while there isn’t graphic violence, friendly bonding over a near-death experience, so be warned of that, some cute stuff, there is some, what else is new though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-06 04:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherstarryeyed/pseuds/ratherstarryeyed
Summary: Heroes and villains are meant to stay far apart, are meant to hate each other. But sometimes, what’s meant to happen won’t end in a happily ever after. So sometimes, what’s meant to happen isn’t what’smeant to happenat all.





	1. When I’m Gone, Remember You’re the One

**Author's Note:**

> important note: i will be finishing this, but am currently swamped with other things to do so i can’t give you a definite date that this will be done by
> 
> another @sanderssidescelebrations (tumblr) prompt fic. prompts are [here](https://sanderssidescelebrations.tumblr.com/post/187843455281/sanders-sides-spooky-month), if you’re curious.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The closer he gets to the dragon witch’s castle, the more uneasy he becomes. The dragon witch had never attacked him while he’d been too hurt to fight back, so why should he?_
> 
> She’s the villain, _he has to remind himself._ She’s the one who’s supposed to die. And besides, heroes always win, in whatever way they have to. Heroes don’t balk when they have to slay a dragon, no matter how helpless it may be. It’s their duty, after all.
> 
> _So Roman_ will _slay this beast, even if doing so kills him inside._
> 
> * * *
> 
> Roman considers himself a hero through and through, so he never would have expected to feel any form of sympathy for a villain.

_“I won’t let you best me next time, you fiend!”_

_The dragon witch laughs, the sound of it as clear as a bell. “You always say that, darling.” She smiles down at him from her perch upon the roof of a nearby building._

_Roman growls, searching the shops around him for anything he can use as a weapon. He’d dropped his sword a few blocks away, and now is not the time to double back and find it. He needs something to fight with_ now.

_And suddenly, there it is, laying on an anvil just to his right. A knight in shining armor that’s come to his rescue, a guardian angel from the heavens that’s appeared to save him. It’s not a sword, but it’ll do well enough. Roman wraps his hand around the bottom of a poker, still red-hot at the other end. The blacksmith that works at the shop must have left it out when he, like the rest of the villagers, scattered at the sight of the dragon witch. Roman silently thanks him for having done so as he takes one slow breath, then another as the dragon witch tilts her head at him curiously. A final breath, and he hurls the poker at the dragon witch like it’s a spear. _

_Shocked, she doesn’t react until it’s far too late. The poker hit its mark and embeds itself in her chest. She shrieks and her wings flap violently as she tries to escape the burning sensation, clawing at the metal stick with her talons. Her actions only make the wound worse, as bloody scratches emerge around the preexisting burn. The dragon witch is able to calm herself just enough to realize what she’s doing and yanks the poker from her chest, dropping it off the roof. She shrieks again, tossing her head back and letting the noise echo off the surrounding mountains before lifting off of the roof. _

_Roman can still hear her cries of pain long after she flies away, each flap of her wings growing less sure than the last, long after she disappears over the horizon, long after she arrives back in her lair._

♛♛♛

Roman had almost decided to leave the dragon witch alone while she healed herself, but then, of course, he’d come to his senses. He’d never hurt her like that before, and it’s likely that he’ll never have the chance to defeat her again. He’s not one to hit another while they’re down, but he figures that he can make an exception for his nemesis.

_This isn’t a chance he should pass up,_ he realizes reluctantly. 

Sure, if he were able to defeat her while she’s able to fight back, that would be infinitely more gratifying. But he’s also proven time and time again that he simply can’t. She’s far too clever to be caught by even his most elaborate traps and far too powerful to be defeated with just his sword and shield. Roman may not like it, but this is the only way.

He perseveres in his attempts to convince himself of this during his entire journey from the village to the villain’s castle, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as he’d hoped. Despite himself, he still wishes that he could take the dragon witch down in a fair fight. Or just… something other than this. Defeating her this way feels wrong, somehow. It’s stupid, yet his heart stubbornly refuses to back his actions. 

But he treks on anyway, following the directions that songbirds chirp in his ears. This is the only way.

The closer he gets to the castle, the more uneasy he becomes. He really shouldn’t do this. The dragon witch had never attacked him while he’d been too hurt to fight back, so why should he?

_She’s the villain,_ he has to remind himself. _She’s the one who’s supposed to die. And besides, heroes always win, in whatever way they have to. Heroes don’t balk when they have to slay a dragon, no matter how helpless it may be. It’s their duty, after all._

So Roman _will_ slay this beast, even if doing so kills him inside.

Why is he so torn up about killing this monster, anyway? This is the _dragon witch._ His nemesis. He should be filled with joy at the prospect of killing her, not growing more conflicted by the second. 

Frowning at his thoughts, he shakes them away. He can’t afford to doubt himself right now; he has to concentrate. Because this may be the only way, but Roman doesn’t have to like it. That soothes him enough for now.

He catches a songbird on his finger, listening as it tells him _‘just a little further, my prince’_ and smiling as it sings, _‘you will prevail.’_ He already knows he will, of course, but a little encouragement never hurt anyone.

Sooner than he would have liked, Roman arrives at the doors to the castle. He pushes on it gently with his hand, startled to find that it isn’t locked. She must really be hurt if she didn’t take even the smallest precaution to protect herself from him.

Roman slips past the door and allows it to fall shut behind him with a resounding boom. It would undoubtedly be easier to sneak up on the dragon witch, but he already feels bad enough attacking her while she can’t fight back. He might as well give her a warning, level the playing field a little bit.

He listens carefully for any noise she may make; a hiss of pain, the tapping of talons, a low whisper. Anything that gives away her location, he can use. 

_“Don’t hurt me.”_

_Or a voice,_ he thinks, turning toward the source of it. _That works too._

_“Don’t hurt me,”_ the dragon witch repeats. Roman looks up, and there she is. Curled up on a balcony that overlooks the entrance hall, she is a pitiful sight indeed. _“Don’t hurt me.”_

“Why should I not?” Roman asks as his eyes land upon a staircase. He strides over to it, taking the steps two at a time. 

_“Because… because…”_ she hisses in pain as she turns towards him. _“Because I—”_ she growls, unable to force out any other words. _“I—”_ she growls again. 

By the time she’s managed to say those five words, Roman has reached her. “Well?” he says, an impatient eyebrow raised. “Spit it out.”

She makes a noise deep in her throat that speaks volumes of the frustration she’s feeling. _“Wait,”_ is all she’s able to manage before she starts changing. Her horns and wings remain the same, but the spikes that cover her limbs slowly begin to retract into her skin. Her talons shift back to normal nails—and though they’re still long, they’re now studded with rhinestones and painted a lovely emerald green—and her scales start to fade away. But it isn’t until the wreath of smoke that had held her hair in a halo vanishes that Roman finally recognizes her.

“Deceit?”

The dragon witch coughs once, and when she speaks, her voice is drastically different from what it had been. “That’s me,” she says, but gone is the ethereal quality her words had held before; all that’s left is a faint hiss beneath her words. The only aspects of the dragon witch that remain in her current form are her horns, wings, and cunning smile.

“_You’re_ the dragon witch?” Roman asks, incredulous.

“It would appear so, wouldn’t it?” The dragon witch—Deceit? Yes, that seems more accurate—leans back on her—his? Their? Their, just to be safe—arms casually, though they look as drained as Roman has ever seen them.

Then the reality of the situation hits him, and Roman is possessed by a fury he didn’t know he had. “Wha— how could you? How _dare_ you? All these years, it was _you_ trying to— to kill me? Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

Deceit laughs. They have the nerve to _laugh._ “I was never trying to kill you, Roman. Really, I think those are the questions _I_ should be asking.”

But… no, that can’t be right. The dragon witch had always attacked _him,_ not the other way around. She’d always struck first. Always.

Except… oh. Except for the first time. The first time he had seen her, it had been _Roman_ who had attacked. He’d seen her horns, talons, wings, spikes, flames, smoke, magic and only one thought had crossed his mind. 

_Villain._

So Deceit had been right in what they had said. They are the one who should be asking the questions. “Oh,” he whispers. “Oh, Deceit, I’m sorry. If I had known, I never would have tried to— well, you know.”

Deceit smiles back at him ruefully. “There’s nothing you can do about that now though, is there?”

“I— no. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s great and all, Roman dearest, but I may be dying. So, if you’d be so kind as to help me out here, that would be simply lovely. I’m afraid my powers in the Imagination are still limited only to disguises.”

“Oh! Yes, of course. I— I didn’t mean to hurt you that badly.” A blatant lie, but Deceit doesn’t need to know that. It’s harmless, and after all, he’s only trying to make them feel better.

Deceit, for their part, merely hums indifferently as they watch Roman’s hands move over their wounds. Then they decide to ruin Roman’s sense of security by saying, “Yes you did.”

“I—”

“Don’t lie to me, Roman,” Deceit says, amusement ghosting across their face. “I can tell when you do.”

Right. The embodiment of deceit _would_ know when he was lying, wouldn’t they? “Well I— I didn’t want to upset you— If I had known better—”

“I’m not upset.”

“You aren’t?” Roman glances up from the scratch he’d been healing, confused.

Deceit shrugs. “No. Why would I be? You’re Roman Sanders; it’s your job to slay the monster, to defeat the villain, to protect Thomas, to maintain the purity of the Imagination. You were only doing your job.” Roman may have been hearing things, but he could have sworn that Deceit’s words had sounded bitter. He can’t think of a reason why they would though, so he brushes it off.

“Oh. Well, I’m still sorry.” He stares at them, entranced for a moment after they finish speaking. Realizing he’s doing so, he quickly ducks his head, face coloring lightly.

Deceit ignores his flustered actions and simply hums in response to his words, not making another effort to reassure Roman of his innocence. 

Neither of them say anything else until Roman finishes healing Deceit. “There. Done.”

Though their clothes are still shredded, the skin beneath it is as smooth as it ever was. “Thank you,” they say with a voice full of awe, and it’s so quiet that Roman questions if he’d heard it at all. Then they sit up fully and look him in the eye as they repeat, “Thank you.” The way they’d said it that time leaves them far less vulnerable, and now Roman wonders not if he’d truly heard their first utterance of the phrase, but whether he was supposed to.

“It’s no problem.” Roman pauses, flushing slightly as Deceit fixes him with a piercing gaze, waiting for him to speak first. “Are we… going to talk about this at all?”

“Well, I hadn’t been planning to.” Deceit reclines on their arms again before continuing, “But if you’d like, I suppose we can.”

“Yes, I would like. Very much, actually.” 

“If you insist.” They stretch their legs out in front of them and cross them at the ankles, looking every bit as regal as Roman wishes he did. “Ask away.”

“There’s only really one question here,” Roman says, shifting so that he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor across from Deceit. “Why are you the dragon witch?”

“Simple. Because I want to be.”

“That’s not a very good answer.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” They don’t elaborate.

“_Why_ do you want to be?” Roman finally asks, caving to the silence.

“Because sometimes, I don’t like being a boy. And the dragon witch is anything but that.” They still don’t elaborate.

“Care to continue?” Roman prods, leaning forward subconsciously.

“Not particularly. It’s as simple as what I said. There are times when being male doesn’t seem to fit who I am, and being a sexy dragon witch helps me ignore that feeling of ‘not fitting,’ as it were.”

“I didn’t know that Sides could have other genders.”

“Well, I’m not Thomas, am I? And the idea of deceit doesn’t have a set gender, so why would I? If anything, it should be more shocking that I’m not female full time, seeing as deceit is all about opposites and whatnot.”

“Does that mean you prefer she/her whenever you’re the dragon witch?”

“Correct.”

“But he/him still works when you’re not?”

“Correct.”

“Would you use they/them when you’re somewhere in between, like now?”

“Right again, Roman. How clever you are,” Deceit says benignly, ignoring Roman’s proud—if naive—grin as they stand up. “If that’s all, I think I’ll be going.”

“One last thing.”

“Hm?”

“Why the dragon witch? If all you wanted was to be female, why pick a form that’s so… evil?”

Deceit shrugs, looking uncomfortable for the first time since they’d started the conversation. “It’s what I transformed into the first time I came in here; it never occurred to me to alter it. I guess I’m just naturally evil and the Imagination was picking up on that.” Again, Roman swears that he hears bitterness in their voice, but he can’t be sure. 

Roman doesn’t comment on their tone though and only manages a small, “Oh.”

“Are we done now?”

“I, uh, yeah.”

“Wonderful.” They begin to walk away, pausing only once before they descend the stairs to add, “But I hope you know, Roman, that nothing is going to change. I’m still the dragon witch, after all.” Roman is starting to question all his senses now because he’s almost certain that he saw them wink. They turn away too quickly for him to be sure though, wings and horns retracting as they make their way out of the castle. With a final wiggle of their fingers that only barely qualifies as a wave, they’re gone.

And Roman’s alone in the lair of someone who he, until a mere ten minutes ago, would have considered an enemy, a villain even. Now though? Now, he has no idea what to think. All he knows is that he’s slowly melting into the floor, Deceit’s smile etched in his mind’s eye. All he knows is that for whatever reason, he can’t get Deceit’s words, their graceful movements, their elegance out of his head.

He can’t figure out why, but suddenly, all Roman knows is that he’s head over heels in love. Despite every bit of his better judgment, Roman is absolutely smitten.


	2. And Just Because I Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Deceit is not here for Roman. Why would she be, after all? He’s not the kind of person she should waste her time caring about. He’s arrogant, stubborn, egotistical, proud… she could go on, but she refuses to waste any more time on him. Because that’s all he is to her. A waste of time. A waste of time, and nothing more._
> 
> * * *
> 
> Deceit lies to nearly everyone about nearly everything, so why not add herself to the list?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this was going to be two chapters but then i was a fool and made it three
> 
> oops?

Deceit is not here for Roman. She reassures herself of this as she descends the immense staircase, each step taking her closer to the marble floor of the ballroom. Yes, he may be the one who’s throwing this masquerade ball, but he’s far from the reason she’s here.

She’s here to gather intel. To observe the way the Imagination acts while Roman’s in it, examine the reactions of its inhabitants to him. Just because she’s here for him doesn’t mean she’s here _for_ him.

Why would she be, after all? He’s not the kind of person she should waste her time caring about. He’s arrogant, stubborn, egotistical, proud… she could go on, but she refuses to waste any more time on him. Because that’s all he is to her. A waste of time. A waste of time, and nothing more. 

Even so, Deceit can’t help but stare as Roman enters through the doors at the opposite side of the room. She can’t help but be held captive by his dazzling smile, can’t help but hang on to his every word as he thanks his guests for coming, can’t help her own smile as he asks them all to save him a dance. 

He may not be her reason for being here, but she certainly isn’t going to object to his presence.

Deceit is shaken out of her trance when Roman sweeps his cape behind him dramatically and moves from his spot at the top of the steps, joining those already mingling below. He smiles again, and everyone in a ten-foot radius of him swoons. Deceit, on the other hand, ducks her head and moves away. She doesn’t need to risk being near Roman to observe him. Besides, his red and gold jacket is already engraved in her mind and she’s seen enough of his glittering mask to go blind. There’s no reason for her to stand this close.

Still, she doesn’t want to move too far away. Her being here is worthless if she loses sight of Roman in the crush of bodies.

She watches from the edge of the room as he talks and laughs, flitting between each guest as elegantly as a dancer. And he does dance, occasionally taking the hand of someone from the crowd and spinning them in time with the music. He still smiles, and his partner smiles back. 

Deceit feels an inexplicable burning in her chest when she catches sight of these exchanges of pure joy. As someone who normally wants to understand everything, it’s quite odd that she doesn’t want to get to the bottom of this particular mystery. She’s almost afraid of doing so.

Instead of dwelling on the painful sensation she’s feeling, Deceit turns away from Roman. _Just for a little while,_ she assures herself. All she needs is a short break, and surely he won’t stray too far in that time. All she needs is to get to the edge of the room, flee from the oppressive heat of these too-close bodies, escape. 

When she’s free of it all, she breathes again. Somehow, it had slipped her mind to before. So now she takes slow breaths, in and out, one at a time, bringing the pounding of her heart back to normal. She doesn’t let herself linger on her brief panic anymore than she did the fire raging inside of her. That wouldn’t do at all. She’s supposed to be blending in.

Casting her gaze across the room, Deceit searches for a smile to mimic, having temporarily forgotten how to form one of her own. She finds what she deems to be a suitable target as she straightens her spine and smiles, perfectly matching the posture and demeanor of the woman who she had picked out of the crowd. _Much better._

Deceit begins to scan the room again, her newly curated smile fading slightly as it gives way to a frown. She doesn’t know how it’s possible, but she has completely lost track of Roman. He shouldn’t be that hard for her to spot, not while he’s wearing that ostentatious coat of his and the mask that shines more brightly than the sun itself.

“Oh!” she hears a voice call distantly, her face quickly becoming more frown than smile. “Juliet!” Deceit’s eyes rove over the room again. She must have missed Roman the first time she looked. “Juliet!” Her frustration is beginning to show ever more clearly in the deepening lines of her face. “Juliet!” Dear god, she’s also about half a second from snapping at whoever’s yelling to shut up. “Juliet!” Or snapping someone’s neck, perhaps. She isn’t picky. “Juliet!”

Deceit directs her wrath towards the owner of the voice, her perfect smile nothing more than a distant memory, reborn as a vicious glare. “Juliet!” Honestly, she might just destroy this Juliet too. Her not answering is putting Deceit through so much more misery than it should. “Juliet!” She spins to her left, finally locating the source of the voice. Who…? 

_Roman._ It’s Roman who’d been yelling her ear off for the last minute. Roman whose voice she hadn’t recognized in her ire. Roman who is looking directly at her and repeating once more, “Juliet!” 

She raises an eyebrow as though to say, _‘You don’t mean me, do you?’_

He smiles back at her, replying, _‘I do, actually. Just go with it.’_

At least, this is what Deceit assumes he means. She’s not quite certain that he even understood what her eyebrow raise was trying to convey, but whatever the case may be, she decides to humor him, every lie she told herself about why she’s here abruptly forgotten. She reaffixes a smile to her face and drifts over to where Roman is standing. “What was all that about?” she asks him quietly, barely moving her mouth so as to maintain the illusion that she truly is this ‘Juliet’ that Roman had been calling to.

“Dance with me,” is all Roman gives her in the way of an answer. 

Deceit tilts her head at him, confusion warring with the amiable expression that feels as though it has been cemented in place. She doesn’t object, though, when Roman takes her hand and leads her to the center of the dance floor. The musicians begin to play a soft, lilting tune and the two begin to dance.

“Why Juliet?” she asks without preamble as she and Roman glide and spin. Even though they follow no particular pattern, they manage to move in unison, twirling in time with the music.

Roman colors prettily behind his mask. It’s shaped like a dragon’s head, something she hadn’t noticed before in her observations of him. He swallows, then explains, “Well, my name is Roman, which sounds a bit like Romeo. So. Romeo and Juliet, you know?” He’s unable to meet her eyes after finishing his explanation.

“How sweet,” Deceit says with a flutter of her eyelashes and a sugary smile. “They both died.”

He gives an offended gasp. “I may not have thought it through completely, but it was a spur of the moment decision! Pardon me for trying to be romantic!”

“Romantic?” Deceit asks innocently, laughter in her eyes.

Roman splutters out an incoherent explanation, face going as red as the accents on his coat. 

Deceit’s amusement spreads from her eyes as she lets out a soft laugh. “Don’t worry, I know you didn’t mean it. You’re cute when you’re flustered though,” she says with a shrug. “I couldn’t help myself.”

She hadn’t thought it possible, but Roman manages to blush harder. Deceit gives another quiet laugh at the look on his face, and they go back to dancing in silence, losing themselves in the song.

As they’re twirling around the edge of the dance floor, Roman gives a sudden shake of his head. “Wait, did you think I didn’t mean it to be romantic?”

“I— yes?” Noticing the stricken look on Roman’s face, she asks, “Was I wrong?”

“Incredibly.”

“Ah,” Deceit says, pretending to understand while hundreds of thoughts fight to be heard and thousands of feelings war within her.

“So you thought I meant… what, exactly?”

“I thought it was just you being flirty and… you,” she says lamely, finding about a dozen flaws in her logic as soon as she speaks. And she’d thought Roman was the dumb one.

He looks at her for a second before saying, “You didn’t think anything of how flustered I got?”

“No?” she says, questioning how she could have possibly missed all the signs in front of her, clear as day.

Roman says nothing in reply, merely raising a rather judgmental eyebrow.

Deceit can feel her face warming now as the implications of what Roman said hang in the air. She doesn’t want to break whatever fragile magic he’s woven between them by speaking, and she’s not confident she could manage a coherent sentence besides. 

The musicians seem to stop playing out of nowhere, and silence descends upon the ballroom. Deceit and Roman stare at each other for a moment that feels like so much longer before Deceit turns away and vanishes into the crowd, unwilling to sort through her feelings right now. 

She hears Roman attempt to follow her, but she’s already slipped into the crowd and it’s quickly condensing around her. He won’t be able to follow her easily, if at all.

Good.

Because Deceit may not want to sort through her feelings, but she needs to. She needs to at least acknowledge them. Though she is the embodiment of deceit and lying to anyone may be second nature, she does make an attempt to draw the line at lying to herself.

No, that’s definitely a lie. Deceit lies to herself more than she lies to anyone else. Really, she doesn’t need to sort through her feelings at all. She’s perfectly capable of telling herself that they don’t exist and even if they did, they don’t matter. But the truth is, she wants to figure out what it is that’s going on in her mind even if, at the same time, she dreads doing so. If she’s right in her assumptions… her heart flutters at the thought. She desperately hopes that she’s right.

But hope is a dangerous thing. Hers is glass-like: beautiful, but easily shattered, easily able to tear into her fluttering heart. Now that she holds it in her hands, it will be all the more painful if it breaks apart.

She refuses to let go of it though. She’s had one taste, and now she’s addicted. She can’t get enough, won’t ever get enough. It could rip her to pieces, but she doesn’t care. Her hope is intoxicating, dazzling, enchanting. It feels too good to be true.

It probably is too good to be true. Because what she hopes is futile. Why would someone like Roman ever look twice at—much less care about—someone like her? He’s everything she isn’t: selfless, brave, daring… a hero. He’s everything she doesn’t deserve.

And she? She’s a villain. There’s no reason for Roman to care about her. 

Yet… he implied that he did. It doesn’t make sense. What she wants doesn’t make sense either, but when was there ever a time that love has? 

She may be the villain, but a small part of her hopes that maybe, just this once, the villain can have a happy ending.

♛♛♛

_Of course villains can’t have happy endings,_ Deceit thinks as stalks from the palace, angry and heartbroken all at once. Why had she hoped for anything else? _Villains don’t_ get _happy endings._ Not here, not where good triumphs over evil and heroes can do no wrong.

_She was wrong to hope,_ she seethes as she tears the mask from her face, drops it to the ground. _She was wrong about Roman._ She crushes the mask beneath her golden heel as Roman’s face dances through her mind. _She was wrong about everything,_ she decides as Roman’s voice echos in her ears.

_“You’re a villain.”_

So, so wrong. 

Her shattered hope stabs at her heart and she bleeds tears from her eyes. She cries because Roman had been right. She _is_ a villain, and Roman deserves so much more than that, so much more than her. She knows that, and she tells herself that it’s fine. She loves him, so it is.

No it isn’t. Of course it isn’t.

But what’s one more lie?

**Author's Note:**

> comments pls and thank
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ratherstareyed) || [tumblr](https://ratherstarryeyed.tumblr.com) || tumblr posts for chapters [1](https://ratherstarryeyed.tumblr.com/post/188667032552/devils-dont-fly-ive-got-chains), [2](https://ratherstarryeyed.tumblr.com/post/188746012452/devils-dont-fly-and-youve-got-wings), and <strike>3</strike>


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